The Big Game Battle

Watch the official Halo 4 Launch Trailer, courtesy of Xbox 360.

By

Ian Sherr

Updated Nov. 9, 2012 12:01 am ET

In a slick two-minute trailer from
David Fincher,
the director of "The Social Network" and "Fight Club," a young boy is stolen from his home, turned into a surgically enhanced supersoldier known as "Master Chief," then set loose to battle hordes of evil aliens.

The splashy preview isn't for Hollywood's latest major motion picture. It's part of the elaborate build up to the release of "Halo 4," the latest installment of
Microsoft
's blockbuster videogame for the Xbox 360. When it debuts on Tuesday, the game, in development for four years, could easily end up bigger than most movie releases. Its predecessor, "Halo 3" sold $300 million worth of copies in the first week following its 2007 release.

Microsoft is pulling out all the stops to ensure that every male under 45 in America knows "Halo 4" is on its way. In partnership with PepsiCo, there will be Halo-themed Mountain Dew and Halo Doritos. Boys can wear Halo Axe deodorant while playing a Halo version of Risk.

Photos: Inside the Studio Behind 'Halo 4'

A new installment in a second trilogy of games, 'Halo 4,' is scheduled for release on Nov. 6. Inside Microsoft's 343 Industries in Kirkland, Wash., a model of character 'Master Chief Petty Officer John-117' greets visitors. Stuart Isett

Having taken full ownership of the huge "Halo" videogame franchise, Microsoft prepares to release "Halo 4" into a hotly competitive marketplace. Ian Sherr has details on Lunch Break.

All the marketing muscle is projected to help sell six million to eight million games, according to some estimates, one of the biggest videogame releases of the year. Microsoft is betting the new game will help sustain a business that has generated more than $3 billion since its debut in 2001. Over the past 11 years, more than 46 million "Halo" games have been sold at about $60 each, helping spawn a universe of products including toys, Master Chief action figures, books, comics, a hit Internet television show and seven sequel games.

"Halo 4" is far from a slam dunk. A week after its opening,
Activision Blizzard
will launch the ninth installment of "Call of Duty," an annually released war simulation shooting game franchise that has sold more than $6 billion world-wide. Unlike "Halo," which is available only on Microsoft's Xbox console, "Call of Duty: Black Ops II" will be available on
Sony
's PlayStation 3 and
Nintendo
's coming Wii U as well. The intense competition has put pressure on the "Halo" developers to make sure the game arrives on time. Microsoft estimates a week of lost momentum could wipe out roughly a third of projected "Halo" sales.

"If we screw up, it's the beginning of the end of the franchise," says
Bonnie Ross,
who heads up Microsoft's 343 Industries game studio in Kirkland, Wash.

Videogames have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the global entertainment industry. In North America, the videogame market is expected to grow 23% to $18.6 billion in 2016 from $15.1 billion last year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Globally, videogames racked up $58.7 billion in sales last year, bigger than the global music industry, with sales of $49.8 billion. While games are still smaller than the $85 billion global film industry, they are growing at more than twice the pace. Big videogame releases can far outsell a movie launch: Last year, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," broke $1 billion in sales faster than the 2009 movie, "Avatar," the biggest-grossing film of all time.

The blockbuster videogame 'Halo 4' hits the shelves a week before a new version of 'Call of Duty' in an epic fight for attention and sales.
Ryan Etter

Related

Still, a lot has changed since the original "Halo" debuted 11 years ago. Videogames played on consoles, like the Xbox or PlayStation, are increasingly under threat from titles played online or on mobile devices which cost a fraction of the budget and time to produce. "Halo" can be played only on the Xbox, making it a particularly big gamble for Microsoft since much of the industry's growth has shifted to "casual" and free games like Rovio Entertainment's "Angry Birds" or
Zynga
's "Words With Friends."

The appeal of "Halo" lies in a player's ability to see through the eyes of Master Chief as he shoots his way through waves of alien enemies and takes control of vehicles such as "the Warthog," a jeeplike car, and the flying "Banshee" aircraft. The title has become particularly popular, videogame players say, because of how well designed the game's missions are, from the number of enemies on the screen to how they attack. The word "Halo" refers to an alien device which has the power to wipe out all life in the universe.

"Halo 4," with roughly 340 employees working on the project, cost about $40 million to produce, more than twice the industry average, estimates
Michael Pachter,
an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

That compares to Internet games which can have development teams a fraction of that size and cost as little as $1 million to $5 million. Some mobile games are created by single developers in a matter of months with almost no investment.

"Halo" also faces an uphill battle in convincing many players that there's room for yet another sequel to the franchise. Many thought the story had ended with "Halo 3."

Neil McIlmoil,
a 40-year-old radiation therapist in San Francisco, considered among the world's best "Halo" players, says Microsoft has done a bad job explaining why it is bringing Master Chief back after the end of the third "Halo" game, where the character was depicted being lost in space.

Ms. Ross, says she knows it will be a battle to win over devotees of the game. The bigger battle, however, has been getting "Halo 4" to the finish line.

The new version is the first Halo product launched since Microsoft spun off Halo's creator, Bungie, in 2007. Bungie is now working on a game with Activision, while Ms. Ross, a 20-year veteran of Microsoft's gaming efforts, has just a few former Halo developers to provide institutional knowledge.

The genesis of "Halo 4" dates back to 2008 when Ms. Ross and 20 employees started sketching out what a fourth version of the game would entail. Rather than simply have Master Chief fight in more battles, the group decided to tell the back story of how the 7-foot-tall character was created in a military effort known as "the Spartan Program," while also looking ahead to the next big adventure.

Concept artist Gabriel Garza works on a character from the Halo series.
Stuart Isett for The Wall Street Journal

Visually, the team agreed to build more detail and imagery into the game. They wanted it to be longer by creating free additional levels and stories that could be downloaded over the Internet through a feature called "Spartan Ops."

But development turned out to be more difficult than expected. New technology advancements have allowed game makers to create more realistic and visually rich videogames, dramatically increasing their complexity and thus the amount of work involved in creating them. At the same time, the scope of games has grown to encompass entire digital worlds, complete with intricate stories that require large development teams.

By late 2010, the "Halo 4" team had produced a section of the game. But in their attempt to create an immersive atmosphere, the artists had inserted too many enemies on the screen at once and too many buildings in the background. As a result, the game moved like molasses.

The team began removing excess details and simplifying graphics. By early 2011, the team had mapped out "Halo 4," deciding it would contain eight major missions in the main story line, in addition to 10 digital battlegrounds for players to digitally fight one another over the Internet.

But efforts to streamline the story and begin creating art and other aspects of the game went slowly, pushing it a month behind schedule. In late 2011, the team had its "one year out" meeting and realized it would need to shift development teams around to catch up.

By that point, more than 5,000 concept art images had been made, as well as more than 180 renditions of Master Chief. Much more would need to be created. In one part of the game, 480,013 digital leaves would need to be assembled to create the floor of a digital jungle.

In late June, with 19 weeks to go until launch, Ms. Ross and her team held a crucial "go/no-go" meeting with 20 departmental heads, to check whether they were meeting deadlines.

In a presentation, one color-coded chart, dubbed a "Christmas tree," showed the status of the game's progress. Green meant the effort was on-schedule, yellow signified being behind and red was at significant risk of missing deadline. Only about a quarter of the game appeared green in the chart. Key components, from software bugs to sounds to multiplayer features and overall performance, looked like they could miss deadline.

The alarming forecast forced Ms. Ross and the group to focus on helping teams that had fallen behind. They also agreed to invest in additional testing to ensure the game could more easily pass final inspections before it was printed on disks and placed in boxes.

The team also ramped up efforts to fix software bugs. At one point in early August, with 14 weeks to go, the team had discovered 5,564 outstanding bugs. The effort was akin to whack-a-mole: The group would swat 5,000 bugs in one week, only to find about 4,000 new ones.

One bug that
Brian Yu,
who oversees game testing, checked out in August was a headlamp on a tank that wasn't illuminating a pillar correctly. In a video, as the tank approached the pillar, the right headlamp shone on both the ground and on the pillar. But as the tank got closer, the pillar suddenly went dark.

Mr. Yu and a colleague repeated the video a couple of times before deciding to ship the game with the bug because fixing it would mean taking resources away from bigger problems.

During those weeks, many team members were pulling seven-day workweeks and 12-hour days. Some skipped holidays, such as July Fourth and Labor Day. Six employees postponed honeymoons to keep up with looming deadlines.

To grapple with burnout, managers created the "Spartan Stress Relief Program," a series of events named with a wink toward the game's superhuman soldiers. During workday evenings and weekends, ice cream sundaes were doled out as were mugs of beer, massages, cross-fit exercise and family events at the studio.

On Oct. 1, with five weeks to go before launch, the game was sent to manufacturers three days ahead of schedule, allowing the Halo team to print more game disks, stuff them into more boxes and ship them off to retailers in time.

Now, it will be up to players like
Joseph Marenco,
31, a truck driver from San Francisco, to decide whether "Halo 4" is a hit. Mr. Marenco, who has played every "Halo" game, says he'll likely buy the game for his 10-year-old son but wonders if it will live up to previous versions.

"I was under the impression the series had ended," Mr. Marenco says. "I can't wrap my head around how it'll work."

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The Big Game Battle

In a slick two-minute trailer from David Fincher, the director of &quot;The Social Network&quot; and &quot;Fight Club,&quot; a young boy is stolen from his home, turned into a surgically enhanced supersoldier known as &quot;Master Chief,&quot; then set loose to battle hordes of evil aliens.